Tea or Coffee?
by MyVintageLove
Summary: He comes back. He is in love with her tea.
1. Chapter 1

I.

It's Daisy who tells him about the place, in a very Daisy-like way: her curls bouncing around her face with each excited word, her hands moving too fast, and Ivan nodding in the background. He gives it a try.

The place is supposed to be retro but it's kitsch at best. He doesn't understand the need to make it an inn-slash-coffee-shop when it could have simply been a nice little bed and breakfast. Actually, he doesn't understand the need to always make 2-in-1 things. But Daisy usually has good tastes and he really needs a new place, being sick and tired of Starbucks. So he sits, frowning at the large Hawaiian picture on the wall (which goes along with the barista wearing a plastic lei around his neck). Kitsch.

But the coffee is not so bad.

II.

She's here the second time he comes in. He doesn't know what he expected, but freezing with his hand still on the doorknob wasn't an option. She's sitting on the counter, care-free, laughing with the barista from the other day (or at him, he isn't sure). He's momentarily amazed by the vision, by her clear and merry laugh, by the lei she wears around her head instead of her neck, colourful flowers clashing with her dark curly hair. But then the barista (George, he think he remembers him being called like that) turns to greet him and the moment is gone. She smiles at him, sweet and welcoming, and he orders a coffee before choosing a place.

A place at the very back of the room, near the kitchens, as far as possible from the counter.

III.

He comes back.

He is in love with her tea.

IV.

He sits at the table by the window, even if the couches look way more comfortable. He doesn't want to take the risk to have a complete stranger sitting next to him. It always ends in a woman flirting with him and he doesn't want that. So instead, he opens his laptop on the table and pretends not to stare at her from the corner of his eyes.

She always sits on the counter, when she is not making drinks and when the manager is not around. She has that habit of popping a coffee bean in her mouth and chewing on it in an adorable way. Sometimes, she forgets about it when she talks, and it ends in something embarrassing for her. She never cares, laughing at her own behaviour.

She amazes him. Nobody is ever that cheerful.

V.

He comes back. Every day, for a month, before he admits it.

He is in love with her.

VI.

She draws hearts on the 'i' as she writes his name on a paper cup when he doesn't have time and buys his coffee to go. He likes the way she dwells on the 't' when she says his name, nobody else does that.

Mi_t_chell.

He wants to hear his name on her lips over and over again. He wants his name to be the first thing she thinks about in the morning, the last thing her mind wanders on as she falls asleep. He wants her to whisper it, to giggle it, to sing it, to moan it. He wants her to scream his name, wants to makes her screams as loudly as he can and –

He opens his eyes.

He takes his laptop, throws a tip on the table and flies away.

VII.

George knows. He sends him all those sad knowing looks when he is not too busy flirting with Nina, the third barista. Mitchell doesn't know if he should panic at the idea or just be relieved that someone understands his pain. He decides to do both and shoots a thankful smile at George before leaving.

He doesn't come back for a whole week.

It doesn't help.

VIII.

His heart misses a beat when she is obviously so happy to see him again. He sits at the counter, for the first time, and the lack of customers allows them to talk more freely. "Coffee?" she simply asks and she laughs when he answers "Black, like my soul" with a smirk on his lips.

He sips from the cup as she tells him about her family, about working to pay for her studies but dropping out of the university anyway. At some point she makes herself a mug of tea, but doesn't drink it, simply holding it in her hands until it's cold. He tells her about his weird friendship with Ivan and Daisy, and his family back in Ireland, and his homesickness sometimes. She can relate to that, hating Wales and missing Bristol deeply.

The conversation becomes sad and so does she, a little frown on her brow. She turns her head to the door and he hates himself for doing that to her, for not being able to have a nice cheerful conversation with her. So, in the head of the moment, he leans against the counter to kiss her cheek. She turns her head to him at the same moment.

The kiss is too quick to truly appreciate it.

She opens her eyes wide, he laughs it off and apologizes. But all he can think of is reaching for her over the counter, hand on her neck, and snogging her senselessly. No, snog is not the word, he doesn't want that. He wants to kiss her, a cinema kiss, one that will blow her mind on so many different levels.

But he doesn't.

They never talk about the kiss again.

IX.

There's this moment in the week, Thursday at two, where it's only him, George, and Annie. He doesn't know why, but George tells him it has always been like that, nobody coming at that moment. Nobody but him, apparently. So they take a break and, one thing leading to another, Mitchell finds himself laughing out loud in front of his laptop with George, watching funny videos of cats without being able to stop. Annie rolls her eyes and mutters something about boys, but her smile never leaves her lips.

He likes those moments. He feels like belonging somewhere, like having true friends. He tries not to think about how sad that statement is.

X.

It's a Wednesday afternoon and Annie is more excited that she has ever been (which is a lot, even by her standards). She looks like a kitten with a ball of wool and can't concentrate on anything. She makes his tea three times before finally having it right and he gives up by asking what is up with her.

"Owen comes back from Saudi today!"

"Owen?"

"My fiancé!"

If his heart drops in his chest, if his brain stops working for a second, he ignores it and smiles as she shows him the ring on her fingers he never really cared about. He fakes happiness for her then pretends he has something important to do on his laptop. She nods and finds another customer to annoy with her story of perfect weddings and chocolate cakes. He drowns his thoughts in the tea.

And of course, because things always gets worse at some point, she squeaks when the doors opens and throws herself in the arms of a perfect stranger. At least, a stranger to Mitchell. His nose is ugly and his arm a bit too tight around Annie's waist as he asks her to take the rest of the day off. When she leaves with the bastard, it's like she takes all of Mitchell's happiness with her.

"Irish coffee?" George asks simply, and Mitchell doesn't know if it's been a minute or an hour since he saw her leave.

"Minus the coffee" he answers broodingly and watches the bottle of whiskey appear in front of him.

He is grateful for George being here. Even more so when they start bitching about the bloke. It's useless and immature, but it makes him feel better. Or maybe it's just the alcohol.


	2. Chapter 2

I.

Monday mornings are Annie's shift and he would avoid the Heights if it wasn't for the fact Herrick called him at five in the bloody morning. He needs his caffeine before doing what he has to do. But he only finds a close coffee shop. The bed and breakfast part of the house is open, though, and that Tom bloke tells him Annie never turned up.

Annie is a lot of things but late she is not.

He tries not to think too much about it as he buys his coffee at Starbucks.

She's simply late. Or sick. Or didn't hear her alarm clock. It happens.

Nothing to worry about.

II.

She has taken the week off. Holidays in the south of Spain or something.

At least, that's what George says.

Mitchell tries (and fails) not to think about who she is with.

III.

He meets Lauran via Herrick. She's not so bad, if a little over the edge, and he always had a thing for brunettes anyway. They see each other. A lot. He doesn't think of it as dating, it's only physical, nothing personal, nothing intimate. She drives him crazy but she helps him forgetting about things.

He stops going to the Heights, spends all his money on cheap beers in pubs that are too gross even to his standards. Lauren keeps him company most of the time.

He almost forgets her.

IV.

He wakes up in a startle, with a hangover, the stamp from a nightclub on his wrist, and no memory whatsoever from the preceding night. He decides to go back to sleep when someone knocks at the door, and understands that's what woke him up in the first place.

He would ignore it, if the person behind the door weren't so eager.

He zombie-walks across his flat and barely has time to think he most likely looks like shit.

Because opening the door is like a cold shower. Only worse.

She's here, she's at his door, she's beautiful and he has never seen her that upset before.

Impressive how quickly he sobers up.

"Annie?" he croaks.

"Where the fuck have you been?"

He opens his mouth to answer but she doesn't leave him the chance, going on about not showing up at the coffee shop for almost a month, and George worrying to death, and thinking he's dead, and looking him up in the phonebook and…

For fuck sake's, she's not the boss of him. Or his girlfriend.

Gosh, he's not even sure she's his friend at this point.

He grabs her by the shoulders, pushes her out of the apartment and slams the door at her face.

"Go back to your fiancé!"

There's a noise and he thinks she just head butted the door. He couldn't care less.

V.

He goes back to the coffee shop, carefully avoiding her.

He missed George.

VI.

Lauren leaves him.

No explanation. One day she's here and the other she's not.

He gets so drunk he's sure he blacks out for three days.

VII.

He nurses his hangover in freshly brewed coffee. Or, rather, there's a cup of freshly brewed coffee next to him and he hides his face in his folded arms on the counter. He can feel George's eyes on him as he leans against the opposite counter.

None of them talk.

They don't need to.

At some point, Mitchell is pretty sure he starts sobbing. At least, he thinks that's what he does, with his shivering shoulders and all. He doesn't care that men aren't supposed to be the weak ones, that's bullshit. He doesn't care that there's other customers, probably looking at him.

He just needs to breakdown.

VIII.

She finds him like that an hour later. Of course she does.

She comforts him. Of course she does.

He stops her when she wants to apologise, because he doesn't want to hear what she has to say. He doesn't deserve her to be sorry for him when he's the one with all the flaws. None of this would have happened if it wasn't for him falling for her, if it wasn't for him not paying attention to the diamond on her finger.

It's the only thing he can focus on now. It's so shiny.

Still, he lets her take him in her arms. Because he's selfish.

She starts crying at some point, and what a spectacle it must be for everyone else in the coffee shop. He wonders if she cries over their lost potential, over what their life could be if it wasn't for her Owen in the picture. Because that's why he is crying.

IX.

Just like the kiss before that, they never talks about it. Things come back to normal, eventually. She smiles like before, and laughs like before and, well, he falls for her all over again but at least now he knows not to expect anything from her. He knows the rules.

He comes back every day, just like before, and it takes less than a week for their little routine to be back on tracks. Never would have he thought he's missed George that much, though. Or Nina, for all it matters.

He smiles again, eventually, and she even manages to make him laugh.

His little angel.

X.

Annie doesn't usually wear make-up, only a bit of eyeliner.

So it comes as a surprise that she seems to wear foundation that day.

It's when she's facing the morning light that he understands why, that he sees the purple below her eyes she so carefully tried to hide. She doesn't explain, doesn't have to. He remembers of the bastard's possessive, almost aggressive, grip on her waist and it's enough to connect the dots.

He sees red.

Finding him is the tricky part. Mitchell's first against his nose, that's the easy part. Kicking him in the ribs, several times, that's the part he could have gone without, but it feels so good.

He waits for her by the back door of the coffee shop and she's clever enough not to ask whose blood it is on his gloves. She cleans the blood, gives him a cup of tea, whispers a weak "thanks".

Like everything else, they don't talk about it.


	3. Chapter 3

I.

Something has shifted between them.

Mitchell can't exactly point a finger at it but he feels the change, almost tastes it on the tip of his tongue. She's still Annie, the cheerful smiling bubbly Annie he's always known but... He doesn't know, really, it's different. It's something in her smile, in the way she looks at him maybe. He doesn't know. It disturbs him.

Her fingers brush his when she hands his cup of tea, and he's sure she's done that on purpose.

He shoots her a look, raises an eyebrow, but she acts all innocent on him. He looks back at her hand, back at her face, back at her hand.

Then it falls on him.

The ring is gone.

II.

Herrick leaves him alone for a while.

It means living on pasta and coffee but it's a relief because it also means more time to hang out at the coffee shop. It's almost his second home now, from dawn to George kicking him out at the end of the day.

Annie works longer shifts. She says it's for the money, what with paying the rent by herself now, but Mitchell thinks it's also to spend time with him. He can't help it if he's that pathetically in love with her.

And it's good, a bit of hope, sometimes.

III.

He sits on a stool. She's sitting on the counter as usual, and popping coffee beans in her mouth as if it were candies. She almost chokes on them as he carries on telling her the story of how his friend Carl almost got them both killed during their trip to Paris when they were eighteen.

She laughs so loudly it makes her snort, and she nearly falls off the counter at some point. She brushes the tears of her eyes as she giggles like a school girl.

"You're so lucky to have been to Paris."

"You've never?"

She shakes her head.

"I'll take you there one day."

He doesn't understand the implication of his words until he realises she's staring at him, all in her seriousness. She doesn't blink, and maybe he's blushing a bit. He wants to shrug it off, not to make it A Big Thing, when she leans to kiss him on the cheek.

And if he smiles like an idiot for a second, it's really not his fault.

IV.

Moments between George and Mitchell, only the two of them, are too rare not to be appreciated fully. Okay, they don't talk much as Mitchell dozes off and George mops the floor, but it's the comfortable silence of two blokes who don't really need to talk.

It's Mitchell's third cup of coffee (he's learnt to use the expresso machine by himself now) until George finally stops cleaning. Well, not really, he cleans the counter now, but at least he's stopped walking around and they're chitchatting.

"So are you and Annie...?"

Mitchell chokes on his drink.

"No!" His voice is too high-pitched to sound natural. "I mean, no, of course not, we're friends."

Awkward sip of coffee.

"D'you think we could..."

"I don't know. You guys could be good for each other."

And with that George goes back to cleaning some mugs, as if they weren't talking about the most important thing in the universe.

(Maybe he should re-evaluate his priorities in life.)

"She could be good for me."

"And you've always been good to her. Don't think I don't know about what you did to that knob."

He takes that as George's blessing, as weird as it is.

V.

He doesn't know how to court her.

Properly, he means. Because the smiles and winks and flirty catchphrases aren't good enough.

He's so lost it becomes almost funny.

He starts only ordering tea, because he knows making it for him makes her happy.

It's not much. Maybe it's enough.

VI.

He spends so much time in the coffee shop he might as well be part of the furniture now.

Some days, he's even waiting at the door before Nina opens it. She rolls her eyes but can't quite hide her smile.

He takes that as Nina's blessing.

VII.

"We should have a party."

He sits with his back to the bar, his head so swept-back it actually leans against the wooden counter. As per her usual, Annie sits on it, cross-legged, and if she unconsciously plays with his hair, nobody points it out.

"Mitchell, I'm sorry to break it to you after such a long time, but we're actually a coffee shop."

He glares at George, upside down, and tries to roll his eyes despite his weird position.

"I know that. But a party would bring in more customers, makes the place more alive. You could, you know, make it more attractive to the youths and play on the 'back-packer' card. Coffee shop and cheap beds, it's perfect for broke students."

Annie and George share a look, unconvinced.

"Oh come on, guys! It's called Honolulu Heights and the only Hawaiian things about this place are that awful wall picture and the flower thing in Annie's hair. Time to live up to the name!"

They share another look. Not as unconvinced as before.

VIII.

To everyone's surprise, even Mitchell's, the manager accepts the idea of a party.

It's a matter of weeks before they have the licence to sell alcohol.

And, well, maybe Mitchell manages to get hired in the process.

IX.

George sulks for the sake of sulking, because he looks like a fool wearing a Hawaiian shirt while Mitchell looks his attractive self even with the flower pattern.

The both try (and fail) not to drool on Annie and Nina in their bikini and skirt. Nina hides behind a big straw hat. Annie wears flowers everywhere, around her neck and wrist, around her ankles, and a hibiscus behind her hair. Both of them look gorgeous.

Mitchell is the first one to stop staring, and he takes Annie's hand to make her whirl.

X.

The party is a success.

They spend the whole afternoon and evening making coffees and cocktails and teas, and all the rooms are booked by the end of the night. George and Mitchell high-five too many times but they don't care. Annie keeps whispering about the shoes she'll finally be able to buy with the tips she's making tonight.

At some point, she's making tea, and he creeps behind her to murmur a "my tips are for Paris" in her ear. He hears her telling Nina she doesn't really need the shoes, after all, she's rather keep the money for something else.

It's two in the morning when they're finally able to close, and Mitchell sends George and Nina home as they're doing the morning shift and need sleep. He removes his fingerless gloves so dramatically it makes Annie laugh, and settles for cleaning everything while she counts the money they've made that day.

In an hour they're done, and the dishwashers are humming in the kitchen. They sit in the stairs, not quite ready to call it a day and go home yet.

"The flower, it means something, right?" he asks, pointing above her ear.

She has to touch her hair, as if she's actually forgotten the flower is here in the first place.

"Yes. Left ear when you're taken, right one when you're still available."

He's torn about what he wants to do, his fingers tickling, before giving up.

He delicately takes the flower, careful not to damage it, and moves it from one side of her head to the other.

From right to left.

"Not available." It's barely more than a whisper in the silence of the night.

His fingers linger on her cheek. She smiles.


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far, it means a lot to me. There's only one part left, so enjoy it!

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I.

The best thing about closing is all these pastries they can't serve the following morning because they will no longer be fresh enough. And who are they to waste such good food?

She puts a cookie in his mouth, because he somewhat managed to convince her they're his favourites when really it's just because muffins are hers. He nibbles it as she puts a whole chocolate chips muffin in her mouth, resulting in hamster's cheeks that make him laugh.

They always spend more time eating than they do actually closing the coffee shop, but nobody is there to stop them anyway.

When she eats a doughnut, it leaves powdered sugar around her mouth, and he really wants to kiss it away. But he's too much of a coward, like during the hundreds of other opportunities he had to kiss her.

So he simply rubs her mouth, grinning at her.

II.

It barely comes as a surprise when Nina corners him in the cellar when he goes downstairs to grab a box of tea bags. He'd rather have her not do that between two batches of pastries, with a rolling pin in her hand, but it doesn't seem like he has a choice anyway.

"Mitchell, what are you doing?"

His eyes fall on the box in his arms and, for a second, he wonders if it's a trick question.

But saying he doesn't know what she means would be lying.

"Nothing."

"Yeah. Exactly. That's the problem!"

He wants to tell her to sod off, that he doesn't meddle in her relationship with George so she shouldn't do it in his relationship with Annie. There are a million insults on the tip of his tongue. But his mother raised him to be a better man than that.

So he simply shuts up and glares at her.

"I'm waiting for the right moment."

"And it didn't occur to you the right moment was when you basically told her she was yours? _Two weeks ago_?"

He knows she's right. Of course she is. But he's too stubborn to accept it.

He rushes past her and goes back to work. They spend the whole day glaring at each other from different sides of the room, refusing to explain when someone else asks them what is going on.

III.

He doesn't know when exactly they decide putting a tip jar on the corner of the counter is a good idea but Annie finds one and adds a little sign on it.

"Help sending the curly haired baristas to Paris."

They put their tips in common in the jar and she grins every time someone adds a few coins.

IV.

The first Hawaiian party was such a success they decide to throw a second one.

There's something funnily appealing about George wear shorts and flip-flops, Mitchell says.

At some point, and because they seem to be popular on the travelling students card now, the "once in a while party" becomes "your usual Friday night at Honolulu Heights".

It comes with a wage rise, so they're not ones to complain.

They even hire more people to take care of the bed and breakfast part of the business, some weird bloke named Hal and a Scottish girl. Mitchell doesn't see them much, thought, as they keep things separated.

V.

It takes less than a month for the jar to be full.

At the end of the day, he lets Annie counts the money as he cleans up everything.

Thankfully, there are more bank notes than there are coins. She does what children do with their piggy bank, separating the coins by size and putting them in neat little piles of ten pounds. Her tongue pokes out of her mouth in concentration and it's the cutest thing he's ever witnessed in his life.

He can't quite remember the exact amount but they almost have seven hundred pounds, which is more than enough for the train and a nice little hotel room.

She jumps in his arms when he says so. He squeezes but quickly lets go of her.

Another lost opportunity.

It's pathetic now.

VI.

She buys him a flat cap the following day, saying that all the men in France have one. He rolls his eyes and asks how she knows that as she's never been to France, but wears it the whole day anyway, and stomps on George's foot when he calls him a newsy.

He buys her a French sailor shirt two days later.

VII.

"You know, there's this bridge in Paris – I looked it up online – with love padlocks. How romantic is that? In Paris?"

That's when he realises what an idiot he actually is.

IX.

He can't find the right moment because Nina was right and the right moment was weeks ago. He's never felt more stupid in his life and wants to slap himself a hundred times.

George, because of course George always understands everything, comes to him one day and tells him that it's okay, it's not such a big deal. Mitchell should just go for it.

He's wrong.

It is a Big Deal, with the capital letters.

The Biggest Deal In The History Of Ever.

X.

It takes him two more weeks to accept the fact there will most likely not be another Right Moment. It's just a fact.

They're settled in their usual routine of coffee making a pastries selling, of tea bags and sugar cubes. It's familiar, simple, if a little tiring sometimes. Nina and George for the morning shift, Mitchell and Annie for the afternoon, the four of them on Friday nights and weekends. Tuesdays are off but they usually spend it together anyway, at the cinema or someplace else. He likes it, their weird little family.

The Right Moment happens on a Monday, about an hour before closing.

He doesn't even know it's that until it happens.

He sees her flower necklace hanging with the keys from the different rooms and grabs it. She's making tea, her back to him, and he stands behind her to put it around her neck. He feels her smile, her whole body radiant in front of him, before she spins around and grins at him. She tiptoes and puts the necklace around his neck too.

There's barely more than an inch between them.

He rubs his nose against hers, with a delicacy he didn't even know he had.

The kiss tastes of Earl Grey and chocolate chips muffin.

It's not the right moment, it's The Best Moment Of His Life.


	5. Chapter 5

N/a: Thank you all for all the sweet review, following and favourites. Means a lot! Here's the fifth and last part, hope you enjoy it.

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I.

Honolulu Heights closes for two weeks in September, after the summer rush, and they take that opportunity to finally go to Paris. He thinks it will all be romantic walks by the Seine and couple pictures on top of the Eiffel Tower. He's so wrong.

Annie, more excited than he's ever seen her before (which is, a lot), takes his hand and, last thing he knows, he's trapped in the Louvres for the rest of the day. Then the Musée d'Orsay, the Pompidou Centre. And, yes, he remembers painfully, she used to be an Art student. She drags him to almost all the museums in Paris.

So he puts his best smile on and lets her tell him about this painting, that artist.

When she's done with everything she wanted to see, four days later, he finally gets the chance to bring her wherever he wants.

It's the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre, Notre Dame. It's cheesy couple pictures and shared ice creams. And, of course, it's a compulsory stop in the best tea shop of Paris and watching her eat as many macaroons as her belly can bear, and wondering when he got so lucky.

They're too broken to eat in fancy restaurants every night so they buy take-outs and eat while watching French telly, laughing at the fact they don't understand a single thing.

He takes her to the Tuileries Garden by night and they dance to the sound of a band. She laughs, carefree, and he kisses her sweetly. They make it back to the hotel, his arm wrapper around her shoulders, with this feeling nothing could be more perfect than this moment.

They make love for the first time that night.

II.

Herrick comes back, eventually. Herrick always comes back anyway.

Mitchell tells him to piss off, it's over, he never wants to be involved in that crook business ever again. He's a clean man now.

Herrick has the laugh of a man who knows it's not quite true, no one can change so drastically in so little time, but at least he leaves.

When Annie asks, he simply shrugs and tells her not to worry.

III.

Nothing changes.

That's the most surprising part, nothing changes between them when they're at work. The same habits, the same choreography between the coffee machines, the same sharing of tasks. It's as nothing ever happened between them, as if they're still those two friends flirting senselessly.

She's so professional it kills him a bit.

But sometimes, when nobody's watching, she tiptoes to kiss him so there's that.

He waits until the end of the day to switch from colleague to boyfriend.

IV.

George is so happy for double dates even Annie rolls her eyes.

But Mitchell sees, how she whispers with Nina and glances at him every so often, and he barely hides his smile behind his beer. He nods at whatever George is saying, and winks at Annie the next time she looks at him.

Life is good.

V.

Things get out of hand during one of the Friday parties.

They're a whole gang of Australian backpackers staying at the Heights for the week (god knows how Aussies managed to willingly get lost in Wales) and the ambiance is electrifying. It simply started with tea at five in the afternoon.

It's now almost two in the morning and Mitchell is having a drinking contest with one of the surfer boys. They're not supposed to be drinking when working but, well, they're also supposed to close the bar at midnight so there's that.

Annie tries pretending she's only tipsy but everyone knows she's been drunk for hours.

"I'll go grab some more bottles in the cellar" she says, jumping from her place on the bar counter.

Mitchell knocks back another shooter. "Comin' with ya, me love."

He's never sound more Irish than tonight.

And, of course, it doesn't take them more than thirty seconds alone in the cellar to start kissing. It doesn't take more than a few other seconds for his hands to slip under her shirt, for her fingers to start playing with the buttons of his jeans.

And, of course, George finds them a couple of minutes later.

His scream is so high-pitched it would drive dogs crazy.

VI.

He learns to make latte art at some point, when there's no patron around and he's bored.

It's even harder than it looks, but Mitchell is nothing if stubborn.

VII.

He sits on a stool between Annie's tights as she's once more on the counter, his back to her.

It's the kind of day when no one, absolutely no one comes by and they're bored to death at that point. So bored they've been playing ten fingers for hours now, which basically boils down to saying random things about their life. She plays with his hair and he tries to ignore what he might look like, as he's perfectly aware she's braiding his hair now.

"I've never been to Disney Land."

"Really? That sucks! I've never stolen anything in a shop."

"Likewise. I've never read the last Harry Potter."

"That's a good enough reason to break up with you. I've never watch Laurel and Hardy."

"_That's_ a good enough reason to break up!"

She keeps braiding his hair, he drinks a cup of tea in silence until she pushes his shoulder to tell him it's his turn to speak.

"I've never been in love before you."

Her fingers stop moving. Actually, her whole body freezes and, when he looks above his shoulders, all he can see are the tears in her eyes before she throws herself at him.

VIII.

One day he realises it's been a year since he's walked into the coffee shop for the first time.

His life has changed so much since then, he's almost forgotten what it was like before.

Who he was before meeting the three of them. Before meeting her.

He makes a mental note to thank Daisy.

IX.

Saturdays are hard sometimes, and it's one of those times.

Annie sits by the counter, on a stool this time, with a perfect hangover from the party the preceding night, head in her hands and a mug of chamomile in front of her. He does the work for two, because he's perfectly aware she wouldn't be able to even pour a glass of water in this state.

By the end of the afternoon, it gets better but she settles for doing some paperwork anyway, as an excuse not to stand up.

They're about to close when a mug of coffee appears in front of her. She frowns at first but smiles when she sees he's drawn a heart in the foam, then frowns again when he takes the mug back.

A second mug appears, hot chocolate this time, and she smiles again. It's always been her favourite drink for the end of the day.

He's drawn an interrogation point on it with powder chocolate.

When she raises her hand, ready to question him, her eyes widen at the key he's holding in front of her, a smirk on his lips.

X.

The flat is empty and it looks so big, but soon there are boxes everywhere and Ikea furniture to build and walls to decorate. It's not so big anymore but it's cosy and _home_.

She buys two white mugs, with 'his' and 'hers' written in dark letters.

She puts them in the kitchen cupboard before everything else.

He grabs her by the waist and kisses her neck, whispering about love and life and future.


End file.
